about the book
Fifteen-year-old Aristotle “Ari” Mendoza has always been a loner. His own moodiness is actually preferable to him than the company of others, who likely wouldn’t understand him. His family is partly to blame—Ari has an older brother in prison, a fact they never talk about, and his father suffers from terrible PTSD from his time in Vietnam.
This summer in El Paso, his hometown, Ari spends time at the local pool, where he meets Dante, a loner from another school. It is a tentative meeting at first, but as the heat of the summer wears on, the two slowly become friends. Dante teaches Ari how to swim.
When Dante takes Ari to his family’s house one day, Ari is shocked at how open and honest everyone is with each other—they even have a “no secrets” policy. As the boys get to know one another better even their parents meet and form friendships.
As the summer nears its end and the rainy season begins, Ari and Dante are out stargazing and get caught in a rainstorm. Blinded, Dante doesn’t see the car coming, but Ari does.
Ari saves Dante, but does not escape unharmed himself. With severe injuries, Ari spends a long time in the hospital, time in which he wonders to himself what in the world moved him to risk his life for a friend.
about the author
Born in his grandmother’s house in a small farming community outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Benjamin Alire Saenz was the fourth of seven children. He was not a particularly good student but discovered his passion for his culture, the Chicano movement, and the fight for civil rights which spurred him on to continue his education.
He entered St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, earning a BA in Humanities and Philosophy. He continued to study theology at the University of Louvain in Belgium. During the summers he worked with the homeless in an Irish slum in London and learned the real meaning of the word “colonialism” in Tanzania. He also studied art, gaining a love for Mexican muralists and contemporary American artists. Though ordained a priest, he left the priesthood three years later.
Benjamin entered the graduate program at the University of El Paso where he received an MA in Creative Writing. He went to the University of Iowa as a PhD student in American Lit but was awarded a fellowship in poetry at Stanford. After the fellowship, he continued in the PhD program, but before completing it, he took a teaching position in the bilingual writing program (the only one in the country) at the University of Texas at El Peso. He has taught there for over twenty years.
Benjamin co-hosts an online show on writers and writing, “Words on a Wire. Today he loves, writes, and breathes poetry on the US/Mexico border at El Peso.
Sources:
Author interview : NPR
Author interview : School Library Journal
Author page : Amazon
Author biography : Wikipedia
Also by Benjamin Alire Saenz:
Last Night I Sang to the Monster. Cinco Puntos Press. 2009.
He Forgot to Say Goodbye. Simon & Schuster. 2008.
Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood. Cinco Puntos Press. 2004.
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